This disclosure relates to fishing lures. More specifically, this disclosure relates to lure wherein one or more bladed members is slidably constrained within an acute-angle bend region of a hook. The slidably constrained bladed member creates a side-to-side or up-and-down type oscillating motion of the hook as the lure moves through water. The result is a fishing lure that exhibits a more lifelike swimming motion when retrieved by an angler.
Prior art means for coupling a bladed member to a hook are well known. A first end of a swivel, or a lure component enabling more than 380 degrees of rotation, is slid around the hook shank, and the opposite end of the swivel is attached to a “spinner” blade, with the spinner blade able to spin freely or continuously rotate around an imaginary axis generally parallel with the forward movement direction of the lure. While the spinner blade does act as a fish attracting element by emitting visual flash and acoustic vibration, the freely-spinning blade does not enable a side-to-side or up-and-down type motion of the lure. As a result, the lure swims in a straight path instead of moving through the water with an oscillating-type motion.
A more effective lure would better replicate the side-to-side or up-and-down tail motion of swimming prey. By using a novel-shaped hook with a bladed member directly and slidably coupled to the hook, the hydrodynamic forces around the moving lure can be utilized to cause the bladed member to locate itself in a desired acute-bend portion of the hook, thus providing a means for enabling an oscillating-type motion of the lure without the bladed member motion interfering with or striking any other component of the lure. There exists the need for a new and improved type of fishing lure wherein a slidably-attached bladed member can move with a side-to-side or up-and-down type motion as the lure is retrieved by and angler.